Description of the Prior Art
Suede material "particularly leather" has a brushed and abraded appearance and feel. Heretofore a sueded appearance has been made and is available in and on plastic material by initially making the roll or sheet material in an excess thickness. This material, on one side, is subjected to an abrading action by which about seven-thousandths of an inch or more is removed leaving the surface with a brushed sueded appearance. This abrading is fine, medium or course depending upon the desired appearance of the resulting suede product.
A Pre-Ex search was made and the following patents were found and are considered pertinent. U.S. Pat. No. 1,863,976 to FISCHER as issued on June 21, 1932 shows the use of embossing rolls but not their construction as in and by the invention disclosed hereinafter. The use of embossing rolls is well shown and known. Embossing ornamentation is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,095,199 to SPEED as issued on Oct. 5, 1937 and particularly in U.S. Pat. No. 2,514,213 to MASON et al. as issued on July 4, 1950. A method of forming a raised image is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,955,052 to CARLSON et al. as issued Oct. 4, 1960. Using grit blasted rolls is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,051,080 to CLARKE as issued on Aug. 28, 1962 and also to be noted is the irregular finish as used on a substrate. This is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,859,110 to FOSTER et al. as issued on Jan. 7, 1975.
In these and other known embossing roller concepts the production of plastic material with a sueded appearance is novel. The production of the sueded appearance and feel heretofore on plastic has been by abrading or in the use of hand engraved plates. Production of a suede finish by feel and appearance in a seamless plastic roll by an embossing roller or rollers heretofore has not been achieved.
In the present invention the sueded appearance and feel is imparted to plastic strips without an abrading process. This appearance and feel is implanted by embossing rolls without the necessity of further treatment. The plastic material, so embossed, is by an inexpensive production technique and produces a seamless and continuous surface. The grit used to produce the embossing rolls determines the closeness or coarseness of the resulting product.